Law & Order (1990) s19e06 Episode Script
Sweetie
NARRATOR: In the criminal justice system the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups, the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
SWEETIE: (READING) "The way my mother told it was, "she just looked up one day and saw how pretty I am.
"It was the light, she said, the way it came through the blinds.
"She saw that pretty boy sitting across from her coloring on a placemat "and saw a way to boost her income, "to buy that double-wide in Abilene she had her eye on.
"That was the beginning of my life in hell.
"No hope, no future.
"Just the next cheap trick in a filthy truck stop bathroom, and then the one after that.
"But I survived, and I escaped.
" And it's all in this book.
Buy a copy, save a slut.
(ALL LAUGHING) (AUDIENCE CHATTERING) They loved you.
We just got invited out to Orchid.
Wanna go? We have that book signing tomorrow.
I don't know Kate.
You don't even like girls, remember? I like Orchid.
You know how hard it is to get in there? Come on, you never let me have any fun.
Fine.
(LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) Oh, girls! I am in.
(ALL LAUGHING) LUPO: Cut lip.
Bloody nose.
Two gashes in the belly, with matching slits in the shirt.
Smacked around, then stabbed? You find a knife? My guys are looking.
Hey, cute Mr.
Policeman, you looking for a date? (ALL LAUGH) You want to move that line back a little? Thanks.
Unsafe Sex Central.
Pants are buttoned up, shirt's tucked in, so he didn't get very far.
No wallet, no ID.
Cell phone's dead.
Detectives.
This young lady says she recognizes the body.
That's Sweetie Ness.
I saw him after Delilah called 911.
Is he a regular down here? That how you know him? You're kidding me, right? Don't you watch Oprah? He's a writer.
Okay.
Thank you.
Sweetie Ness, horrible life as a child prostitute, wrote a memoir about how he left it all behind.
Or not.
KATE: That's him.
That's Sweetie.
We called his publisher.
They gave us your name.
We don't usually get referred to a victim's agent, Ms.
Tenny.
Does he have a family? You're kidding.
Did you read his book? No.
His mother was a prostitute.
She started selling him for sex when he was 10.
She was killed by a John when he was 14.
He got out and turned himself around.
That's what the book was about, right? Ten years later.
LUPO: Then why was he at the piers last night? (SIGHS) I don't know.
I thought he stopped all that.
BERNARD: Having sex? On piers, yes.
Do you have his address? He drifted.
When he was in New York, he stayed with me.
Did you see him last night? He had a reading at AK-Forty-Eight.
Then we went to Orchid with some of his fans.
I left at 1:00.
He was still partying.
Here.
(EXHALES) You should know where he came from.
Little Whore.
BERNARD: (READING) "One thing about my mother, she had a sense of humor.
"One night she got drunk and starting putting cigarettes out on my ass.
"'Butts to butt, she said.
" Hilarious.
I'm the manager.
You were asking about that writer? BERNARD: Sweetie Ness.
He was here last night? Flavor of the month.
Drew quite a crowd.
Like who? Like everybody.
Madonna came by with her entourage around midnight.
Mr.
Ness was hanging with some of them.
Madonna? The singer? No, the mother of our Lord.
You know, I didn't know she traveled with an entourage.
(STAMMERS) Who was he hanging with, exactly? I can't believe this.
It is just so shocking.
BERNARD: We understand that you were with Mr.
Ness last night, Ms.
Claiborne.
Lauren, please.
I met him at Orchid.
He seemed so sweet.
The paparazzi were crazy, so Madonna didn't stay.
Um, I asked Sweetie to take me to Blaine's Tavern.
It's a total dive, near the piers.
I wanted to experience what it was like in the world that Sweetie Ness came from.
That would be children getting raped for $50.
(GASPS) What a horrible thing to say.
What happened at Blaine's, Ms.
Claiborne? Well, we had a few drinks, and then I lost track of him.
I met a guy who said he was bisexual, and he actually was.
The last I saw Sweetie, he was being hassled by some fat girl.
He tried to get rid of her, but she wouldn't leave.
Just kept asking him about the poems she sent him "I feel your pain.
I cry your tears.
"I breathe you with each heavy breath.
"I know you know I have no fear of meeting you in death.
" That's a candidate.
Signed, Harold Studinsky.
Do I want to know? Mmm-mmm.
LUPO: Poem's to Sweetie Ness from his agent's stalker file.
Half the writers want to save him.
The other half want to have his baby.
And some would be moved to kill him if they knew he didn't share their emotion.
Or want an autographed photocopy of his ass.
Hey, another poem.
Janice Dunlap.
Boyden, Iowa.
She gives her number.
(SCOFFS) "I've held you in dreams of death and dying, "As Juliet her Romeo While barren earth was crying.
" Hi, is Janice there? This girl needs to cheer up.
(LAUGHS) LUPO: Do you know the name of her hotel? Okay.
She's on vacation in New York.
JANICE: I would never hurt Sweetie.
I loved him.
Yeah, we read your poem.
But when you went up to him at Blaine's, he didn't exactly love you back, did he? He just didn't understand what I was trying to say.
He brushed you off.
He rejected you.
He just couldn't hear me.
It was so crowded.
I took out my phone to try and take his picture and it got knocked out of my hand.
I never even found it.
I went outside and waited, so I could get him alone.
Did you see him come out? Yeah.
And before I could get to him someone else came and Oh God, that guy.
What guy? They wouldn't let me into Orchid, so I waited on the street.
And this guy was there, too.
He was following Sweetie, too.
And he followed Sweetie out of Blaine's? Yes, and Sweetie tried to get away, but the guy grabbed his arm and they were arguing.
What did this guy look like, Janice? He had blond hair.
Dyed blond and He was wearing, uh, a jacket that said Royal or something.
And he was at Orchid? Hey, Lauren Claiborne.
She said the paparazzi was out in force over there.
All right.
LUPO: Don't leave town.
BERNARD: Did you get any pictures of Sweetie Ness? No, not on purpose.
The Advocate isn't a big market for me.
You mind if we look through what you got? Um, do you mind if I see a warrant? We could get one.
We may have to shut you down for a couple of days while we take a real careful look around.
Here.
I'll be right over there.
(BOTH CHUCKLE) Let's see what we got here.
Am I just ignorant, or are these not really celebrities? Oh, just ignorant.
BERNARD: There There's Sweetie Ness and Lauren Claiborne.
Check behind them.
Yeah, there's Janice.
And the blond guy.
Mmm-hmm.
Regal Towing Jim.
Is that your jacket? Yeah.
I lost that on the subway.
Why don't we take a walk over here? All right, you want to tell us what's going on, Jim? Or we can show the photo to your friends, see if they know something.
I lost it in a pool game, okay? Hmm, a pool game where? The Mine Shaft.
The mine what? The Mine Shaft.
Mine Shaft, the gay bar.
Yeah.
I was just having a beer.
Is that the guy you lost it to? Yeah, that's him.
The writer, Sweetie Ness.
No, not him, the blond haired guy wearing your jacket.
Yeah.
Him.
That's Sweetie Ness.
BARTENDER: Yeah.
He's been in.
What did he call himself? BERNARD: Sweetie Ness? People call themselves a lot of things around here.
You just missed Dick Cheney.
Trust me, I don't miss Dick Cheney.
Now, what about this guy? Yeah.
He said he was Sweetie Ness, the great big celebrity.
That's why he couldn't afford to buy his own drinks.
So who did? He did.
The guy at the pool table.
Hey, sweetheart! They're asking about your friend, Ernest Hemingway.
You, uh, strike up an acquaintanceship with this guy here? Yeah.
Guess he didn't exactly level with me.
About who he was, I mean.
Well, when did you figure that out? When I saw a picture of Sweetie Ness in the Post and it wasn't him Pretty damn convincing, though.
Knew everything there was to know about the guy.
(LAUGHS) Even had the cigarette burns on his butt, just like it says in the book.
You know this how? You two get naked right here in the bar? We, uh, went to his hotel.
(KNOCKING ON DOOR) BERNARD: Housekeeping! WOMAN: He checked in a week ago.
And he hasn't checked out? Still his room.
Hey, let's go get a warrant.
Hold on.
You spent the night here, Mr.
Dewey? Uh, yeah.
That makes you a co-occupant.
Do we have your permission to go in and look around? Sure.
Great.
Please? (SHOUTING) NYPD! You two wait here, all right? Guess those law classes are paying off.
For this I get extra credit.
Hey.
Yeah? It's your favorite book.
(LAUGHS) It's annotated.
He studied this to get his story straight.
Lupes.
Looks like blood.
The blood on the shirt's a type match for the victim.
DNA comparison's going to take a while.
The blond guy hasn't gone back to the hotel yet, might be on the run.
Meanwhile, our prime suspect in the killing of Sweetie Ness is still Sweetie Ness.
Or somebody who wants people to think he is Sweetie Ness.
Puffs himself up by playing the part.
He was getting into the role pretty good.
These are phone records from his hotel room.
He made three calls to Kate Tenny, the real Sweetie's agent.
KATE: Who is he? You don't know? He called you three times.
You saw the pile of letters that I gave to you.
We also got a lot of calls about Sweetie.
People wanting interviews, sex.
God knows what.
I pretended to listen.
Yeah, well, this guy thinks he is Sweetie Ness, or puts on a pretty good show.
So he's crazy.
He's not the only one.
He committed to the part.
Gave himself cigarette burns to match the ones Mama gave Sweetie.
Oh, God.
He may have gone further than he needed to there.
BERNARD: What do you mean? I don't exactly want the world to know, but in his book, Sweetie may have exaggerated a few of the gory details.
Poetic license? He liked to give people what they wanted.
(MOBILE PHONE RINGING) Excuse me.
Yes? Did she just tell us Sweetie didn't really have those cigarette burns? No, she said he might not.
Why would she make her star writer a liar? Let's go look at some skin.
Smooth as a baby's bottom.
And there's something else about his posterior you might find interesting.
He's supposed to be a male prostitute? I'm not sure he was supposed to be, but he was.
Well, he's the strangest prostitute I ever saw.
I checked for evidence of sex before he was killed.
There's no indication.
There's also no indication of fibrotic changes to his sphincter.
No scars, no warts, no STDs.
He's an anal virgin.
So he lied about the cigarette burns, the rapes, the arrests.
It's one of those fake memoirs.
Or a stolen one.
We ran the prints from the blond guy's hotel room.
Guess who is a male prostitute? Cody Larson, 24.
Busts for drug possession, loitering, soliciting, mostly in truck stops.
So Cody Larson really was Sweetie Ness? Mm-hmm.
He even had the burns.
So, you're thinking he read that book and figured someone had stolen his life? And motored up to New York to get it back.
What about the agent, Kate Tenny? Was she conned by a fake Sweetie Ness, or was she in on the gag? Well, she didn't have many clients.
Came out of nowhere a couple of years ago as an agent.
Now, her bio only says she used to be a journalist.
BERNARD: "Pretty Boys: The Tragic Lives of Child Prostitutes.
" Yeah, Kate had a way with those kids.
Really got them to open up.
It's like she spoke their language.
Yeah, she interviewed a bunch of them.
Trailer parks, truck stops, drugs, rapes.
His mother was a monster.
She sold him to her Johns and laughed about putting out cigarettes on his buttocks.
That was Cody Larson.
Right? You met him 10 years ago when you wrote that article.
I don't know.
They used made-up names.
Yeah, then you ripped him off and wrote your book based on his life story.
He must've been plenty pissed when he found out.
He came to New York.
He called you.
I told you.
I get a lot of crazy calls.
You want to hear crazy, lady? That body that we have in the morgue.
We ran it through Missing Persons and it came back an actor from Louisville named Dale Marks.
His mother said he came to New York for some kind of job and never came home.
You hired him to play Sweetie Ness, didn't you? Based on the book that you wrote, based on the life story that you stole from Cody Larson.
Oh God.
Look, I thought the world should know what was happening to these children.
No one was speaking up for them, no one.
So you stepped up.
Cody wasn't going to write a book.
I didn't even know he could read.
And I didn't think that it would get anyone killed.
Yeah, and while you've been lying to us to protect your phony book, the killer's been getting away.
You have any ideas where we can find him? Right now.
He called me.
He was angry.
He wanted the world to know that he was Sweetie Ness, and he wanted some money, so I sent him a little, twice, just so that I could keep him quiet while I figured things out.
How'd you send the money? The first wire transfer was picked up at a store in the West Village.
She sent the second one the day before the murder.
It was picked up last night at the Cross Bronx Truck Plaza.
Either he hopped on a truck and he's gone Or he's back to his old tricks, working the truck stops.
Home sweet home.
You know, I know that place from when I worked Vice.
There are 30 ways in and out, and truckers and hustlers can smell cops a mile away.
So what should we smell like? How's my audio? VAN BUREN: We can hear your gears grinding.
Yeah, well, next time get me a longer driving lesson.
All right, turn off your headlights, and leave the parking and roof lights on.
Done.
Now you're going to have to look for a date, so go inside, get the mouthwash.
Make sure people see it.
I don't mind telling you this, but that kind of weirds me out a little.
That's a big 10-4, buddy.
Anything else? That'll be it, thanks.
You looking for a party, handsome? I, uh, might be.
Not you though.
I like a man who's all man.
Honey.
(CHUCKLES) I'm more man than you can handle.
A little whiter, too, and younger.
No offense.
None taken, honey.
The customer's always right.
You know? I got a friend now.
Just be sure to give him an extra big tip for me, okay? LUPO: It's been half an hour.
You think he's got appointments backed up, or what? Same old story.
White boy gets the job.
(LAUGHS) Someone's coming your way.
I hear you're looking for some company.
Come on in.
It's 30 for oral, 50 gets you anything you want.
I got 50.
Then I got anything you want.
You read that book? Pretty good.
That's me.
I'm Sweetie Ness.
I don't think so.
This guy got himself killed the other night.
You can't believe everything you read in the papers.
Then who got himself killed? You don't know anything.
This guy was famous.
You're just some truck-stop twink.
So what do you want to do here exactly? Hold on, hold on.
Cody, I'm a cop.
You're under arrest.
Oh, God.
Hold still! And I'm going to need that 50 bucks back.
Docket number 41678, People v.
Cody Larson.
Murder in the Second Degree.
I didn't kill that faker.
JUDGE: Okay, so we'll make that a Not Guilty.
He was the crook.
He stole my life.
Mr.
Haig, you might suggest to your client that he put a sock in it.
He has a legitimate grievance, Your Honor.
So does the dead guy.
Bail, Ms.
Rubirosa? No fixed address, long criminal record Nothing more serious than prostitution and petty theft.
Good news! Free room and board.
Remand.
I understand we can thank your client for broadcasting his motive at the arraignment.
It doesn't mean he killed anyone.
But Dale Marks did steal your life, didn't he, Mr.
Larson? Or you thought he did.
You ought to call me Sweetie.
I'm taking the name.
He just keeps on giving, doesn't he? His persona was appropriated by Mr.
Marks and Ms.
Tenny.
We're filing suit to claim a share of the royalties from the book they published.
Little Whore.
I assume you're looking forward to your share of that settlement, Dave.
I don't usually see you representing indigents.
Well, I do what I can.
A motion to exclude the bloody shirt the police found in the hotel room.
I might have cut his lip or something, but I didn't kill him.
They had no warrant, and Mr.
Larson didn't consent to the search.
He didn't need to.
The room's other occupant consented.
Mr.
Dewey? He wasn't living there.
He was renting.
Which would make him a resident, with a right of privacy, and the standing to waive that privacy.
The room isn't what he was renting.
HAIG: This affidavit from Mr.
Dewey attests that he paid Mr.
Larson for his time and sexual favors.
That's not what he told the police.
Because he was embarrassed.
They like to kid themselves, you know? So you make 'em think you like 'em.
Like you wouldn't take the money from just anybody.
But you would.
Thank you, Mr.
Larson.
Clearly, Mr.
Dewey was a customer, and not a roommate.
CUTTER: Overnight guests have an expectation of privacy.
The police couldn't have searched Mr.
Dewey's things without a warrant.
Conversely, he had standing to give them permission to enter.
The Supreme Court decided this in Minnesota v.
Olson.
HAIG: That doesn't apply to commercial visitors.
If I'm shopping at Macy's and fall asleep on a couch, it doesn't mean I live there.
CUTTER: The police didn't know the circumstances.
They had reason to believe Mr.
Larson and Mr.
Dewey had a personal relationship.
How long have they been cops? Eleven minutes? They should have gotten a warrant.
The motion to suppress is granted.
He's wrong on the law.
It's a gray area.
So I have to listen to a murderer tell me how to pick up Johns at the Mine Shaft, and then let him walk? (LAUGHS) We still have Larson's motive.
Dale Marks stole his life and Larson knew it.
We have a photo of him stalking Marks and the witness who saw him accost Marks right before the murder.
One witness.
Nail her down.
I don't know.
It was really dark outside.
You told the police you saw Cody Larson follow Dale Marks outside of Blaine's Tavern.
They argued and when Mr.
Marks walked away, Mr.
Larson followed.
I'm not sure.
You're not sure about what? Maybe they were just talking.
I was just so focused on the one that got killed.
I thought he was Sweetie.
Ms.
Dunlap, I'm assuming that you didn't lie to the police.
I was very emotional.
I thought Sweetie had just been killed.
Maybe I was looking for somebody to blame, on the subconscious level, you know? Maybe that influenced my perceiving.
Her subconscious mind might have influenced her perceptions? Who's she been hanging out with? Sigmund Freud? Worse.
Check out the visitors' log from Rikers.
She's been visiting Cody Larson in jail.
Or, as he now prefers to be called, Sweetie.
She's obsessed with Sweetie Ness, and now she knows Dale Marks was an imposter, she's changing her story to protect the real Sweetie.
Yeah, but is he the real Sweetie? I understand he has some cigarette burns on his ass that make a pretty good case.
I was reading Little Whore and Cody Larson's probation record.
He was raised by his aunt who put him in Catholic school until he ran away.
Well, there's no aunt in the book, no Catholic school.
And, the book says that he spent three months in a work camp in Michigan.
Michigan Corrections has no record of a Cody Larson.
Kate Tenny interviewed a dozen kids for her article, right? Sweetie Ness is a composite.
KATE: My publisher called me in.
They're talking about pulping the book.
Well, maybe if it wasn't a total fraud.
Look, I may have screwed up, but this book is about real victims, about a situation that needs to be stopped.
We need to find some of the other hustlers you interviewed.
That's not going to be easy.
They've all grown up.
I don't even know if I have my notes anymore.
We can get a warrant and go through your office looking for them.
Yeah, maybe even your publisher's, too.
I'll send you what I have.
No question about it.
That's my stuff in there.
You're buying me lunch, right? Yeah, sure.
Is there any particular reason why this office is flying gay prostitutes in from all over the country? It's the Cody Larson trial.
He's entitled to a jury of his peers.
That's fellow citizens, not fellow hustlers.
It's not for the jury, Jack.
We have a witness problem.
And these men are the solution? Hey, she's here.
Stay.
Watch.
Learn.
Rooted to the spot.
Uh, Ms.
Dunlap, this is Jack McCoy, our District Attorney.
Uh-huh.
Who are they? Out there.
Oh, you noticed.
What do you want? I told that lady that I don't remember anything from that night.
Because you don't want to testify against Sweetie Ness.
Because I couldn't see good.
Now, you came here from Iowa because you admire Sweetie Ness, and you don't want to be the one to send him to prison, right? Ms.
Dunlap, say hello to Mr.
Dean, Mr.
Ramirez, and Mr.
Stocker.
Oh, and by the way, they're all Sweetie Ness.
What? They were all interviewed by Kate Tenny when she was a journalist.
Here.
"I told him no and started to run.
"He said, come back here, boy, "or I'll let the dog loose.
" Damn bitch bit me right here.
Still got the scar.
You know where Uncle Louie got me.
And here.
"My mother was drunk and roaring.
"She tossed the burned chicken at me, plate and all.
" Plate hit me here.
Had to get my uppers replaced.
I still can't chew right.
Stop it.
Kate Tenny used all their stories in this book.
Cody Larson is no more Sweetie Ness than any one of them is.
I don't know.
A man was murdered, Ms.
Dunlap.
His real name was Dale Marks and he was really murdered by Cody Larson.
And you need to tell the truth about what you saw, about what you know.
Just a minute.
I'll need to see those.
Lady, I got three subpoenas, and none of them is for you.
He's a process server, from Cody Larson's attorney.
He'd like our visitors to testify for the defense.
How'd he know they were here? Cody and me, we keep in touch.
I'll take those.
Consider them served.
You just gave the defense three alternate theories of the crime.
If they're all Sweetie Ness, they all had motive to kill Mr.
Marks.
Oh, I stayed.
I watched.
What is it I was supposed to learn? Cody called me a couple of months ago and asked me if I'd seen that book.
This was the first I'd heard.
And how did Mr.
Larson like that book? He didn't.
Um, said it was full of stories, his stories, that he'd been ripped off royal.
Did he indicate what he was going to do about that? Come up to New York and set things straight.
I see.
Thank you.
You were already in New York, weren't you? Yeah, I'd been living here a while.
Some of your stories were in that book, too.
Yeah.
I went out and found a copy after I talked to Cody.
It had the thing about my teeth, bunch of stuff.
So you'd been ripped off royal, too.
STOCKER: You could say.
So you had the same reason to be angry at Mr.
Marks that the defendant did, the same motive to kill him.
He'd stolen your life, too.
Except I didn't care.
Really? You didn't care about the money? Didn't care about the fame? I'm all set, thanks.
Got married a few months ago to a very nice man.
Very generous.
I do not need to rock that boat.
I got a lot of calls about Sweetie.
He attracted all kinds of people.
But did anyone other than Cody Larson ever complain to you that the book had stolen their stories? No.
No one ever did.
That wouldn't have made sense anyway, since the stories were Cody's.
You mean, some of the stories in the book came from things you'd heard from Cody Larson.
No.
I may have helped him out with a few other things I'd picked up, that was my job.
But Cody Larson is the author of Little Whore.
He is Sweetie Ness.
Ms.
Tenny.
Didn't you tell me before this trial that you wrote that book, drawing on the lives of a dozen young men? I told you what you wanted to hear.
You threatened me.
She threatened me.
She said she was going to search my publisher's office.
They would have dropped me.
I couldn't let that happen.
Sweetie Cody.
He has another book coming out.
CUTTER: If Cody is Sweetie Ness, then why did you stand next to Dale Marks and tell the whole world he was Sweetie Ness? We hired Dale.
Cody wanted to protect his privacy.
Look, Cody was in no shape to face the public.
The types of demands fans placed on Dale when they thought he was Sweetie It got pretty crazy.
It may have gotten him killed.
She's lying.
She's been saying she faked that book to save abused children but it's making a fortune, and this puts her back in business.
Larson's lawyer probably brokered the deal.
Maybe.
But she just shot your motive to hell.
Sweetie Ness had no reason to kill someone he'd hired to impersonate himself.
Cody Larson isn't Sweetie Ness.
JACK: He drops his pants to the jury and shows them the burns on his butt, they might believe he is.
Are you enjoying this? Enjoying watching my prosecutors lose control of their witnesses, and their case? That's not the word that leaps to mind.
CONNIE: Okay, so what if it's true? What she said.
Oh, please.
She said the fans got crazy.
We know one crazy fan who was next to the fake Sweetie right before he got killed.
Your star witness, right? I just got this.
Sweetie's book from Paris, in French.
No one else in America has one of these yet.
And look, autographed.
Love to a very special fan.
And he said that he read my poems, him and Miss Tenny.
He said that they were going to put them in his next book.
Janice, you met those other men.
You know that Cody isn't really Sweetie Ness, right? You lied to me.
Cody told me things that no one else could know.
Like here.
Where he talks about the great love of his life.
Chris.
That's a girl, not a guy.
Sweetie wasn't even really gay.
He just went with men for money.
And Chris lived in Little Rock, but then she died.
Janice, if you don't testify truthfully about what you saw, we're going to charge you with perjury.
You're not going to drop the charges? Cody Larson killed a man.
We're not going to let it go because he gave you a phony story and an autograph.
You know if he wasn't really gay, Janice, that means there's a possibility that you and he Is that what you were thinking? Okay.
I did it.
Did what? I killed the fake Sweetie.
She didn't kill anybody.
CONNIE: The water's pretty muddy, Mike.
All the defense has to do is put her on the stand.
Well, that won't be necessary.
I will.
And call the authorities in Boyden, Iowa, or wherever the hell she came from.
JANICE: I went up to Dale outside the bar.
I thought he was Sweetie, and he told me to get lost, and I told him I just wanted to talk.
And he said I was bothering him.
And he said terrible things.
It was awful.
The real Sweetie would understand.
So, I followed him and got next to him again and he shoved me hard.
And I had a knife I carry for protection, and I took it out, I don't know why.
And I didn't mean to stab him.
I'm so sorry.
How many times? What? How many times did you stab him without even knowing why? (SIGHS) I don't know.
It was like a dream.
Like a nightmare.
You don't know because you didn't do it.
Isn't that right? No.
You told the police the last time you saw the victim he was with Cody Larson.
That was before, when Dale came out of the bar.
He was making a phone call.
It was noisy inside, then Sweetie came after him.
You mean Cody.
Cody is Sweetie.
They talked.
And then Sweetie I mean Cody, left, and then that's when I came up to Dale and it happened.
Janice, do you love Sweetie Ness? Um, I guess, in a way.
Kind of.
(GIGGLING) Do you think he loves you? He's never said anything like that, but he did write some really nice notes about my poetry.
But, he never wrote to you about your poems before, did he? When you mailed them to him? No.
Of course, that was before he needed you to falsely confess to a murder so he could go free.
That was before we knew each other.
And now he confides in you, right? He tells you things he wouldn't tell anyone else.
Like about a person named Chris, his one true love? Yes.
Chris was "Not exactly what I made him out to be.
"The main thing being, Chris wasn't a him at all, Chris was a she.
" Two months ago, taken from an interview given by Dale Marks as Sweetie.
They're giving you old news, Janice.
You're selling yourself cheap.
I'm not selling anything.
The fake Sweetie blew you off that night, right? Because he was hanging out with the beautiful people.
That wasn't the real Sweetie.
If Cody Larson gets acquitted, he'll be running in the same circles.
You can't compete with them.
All you can do for Cody is go to jail for him.
That's not what I'm doing.
Do you have any friends? Sure.
A boyfriend? Not right now.
I had one.
Was his name Chuck? A truck driver? Yes.
That would be Charles R.
Thomas? Who was so enamored of you that he went to court to get a restraining order to keep you from bothering him.
This restraining order? (IN A CHOKED VOICE) That was a mistake.
Janice, haven't people been pushing you away and telling you to get lost your entire life? They know that, Janice.
These people are using you.
And you know it.
Now, let's just get the truth out, and say it how it really is.
Did you kill Dale Marks? No.
The last time I saw him, he was with Sweetie.
I mean Cody.
I mean I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, Sweetie.
I'm sorry.
(SOBBING) CUTTER: I understand it wasn't pretty.
It saved her from going to jail for a crime she didn't commit.
Here.
Trial's over, Connie.
We're just waiting for the jury.
No, Janice said that Dale Marks was using a phone when he left the bar.
JACK: So? The police checked his cell records.
He didn't make any calls that night.
His battery was dead.
So, how was he using a phone? Janice said that she lost hers.
Maybe he picked it up.
(CELL PHONE RINGING) Jury's back.
JUDGE: Members of the jury, on the charge of murder in the second degree against Cody Larson, how do you find? JUROR: We find the defendant guilty.
(JUDGE POUNDS GAVEL) (INAUDIBLE) Pull Janice Dunlap's cell phone records.
There were two calls.
One at 3:00 a.
m.
To a limo company, that was cut off short.
Must have been the call that Dale Marks was making when he left the bar, and was interrupted by Cody.
The second call was 30 minutes later.
I thought Dale Marks was dead 30 minutes later.
Cody's story is that he fought with Marks, gave him a bloody lip, but left him alive.
So, whom did Marks call with his bloody lip? Kate Tenny.
The agent? We lifted her prints off a book she gave the detectives.
Put them in the system, this came back.
You did just convict somebody else of your murder.
I know.
Let's go see Ms.
Tenny.
Running late.
Marketing meeting at the publisher.
I hear they're doing Sweetie's second book.
Mmm, 200,000 first printing, first serial in Vanity Fair.
Hollywood is calling.
Even though the author's locked up? Oh, that does kind of mess up the book tour.
But, there is some kind of romance in a jailhouse writer.
Maybe you could do the tour.
Me? (SCOFFING) I don't think I'd pass for a gay male hooker.
No.
But you were a hooker.
CONNIE: We have your record.
You were arrested at 16 and at 18 for prostitution.
CUTTER: And there were sealed arrests when you were 12 and 13.
A child.
That's why the book is so convincing, isn't it? Why it feels so real.
You're Sweetie Ness.
That's ridiculous.
What would happen if we tracked down your mother, what would we find? What kind of monster? My mother is dead, God rest her soul.
CUTTER: What happened, Kate? Did Dale Marks call you after Cody Larson knocked him around? Say he'd had enough? He wanted out? So, you had to go down there and keep him quiet, and things got a little out of hand? Mr.
Cutter, what a wonderful imagination you have.
Maybe you should write a book.
Or (IN HUSKY VOICE) If you ever wanna party with somebody nice and tight, sugar daddy, you just give me a call.
(NORMAL VOICE) Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm late for my meeting.
The police searched Kate Tenny's home and office.
There was no sign of a murder weapon.
They canvassed every hooker south of 14th Street.
Nobody saw her the night Dale Marks was murdered.
So, there's no actual evidence.
I'm filing to vacate the conviction of Cody Larson.
You can't prove she did it.
Something may turn up.
And if it doesn't? She wins.
We lose.
These are their stories.
SWEETIE: (READING) "The way my mother told it was, "she just looked up one day and saw how pretty I am.
"It was the light, she said, the way it came through the blinds.
"She saw that pretty boy sitting across from her coloring on a placemat "and saw a way to boost her income, "to buy that double-wide in Abilene she had her eye on.
"That was the beginning of my life in hell.
"No hope, no future.
"Just the next cheap trick in a filthy truck stop bathroom, and then the one after that.
"But I survived, and I escaped.
" And it's all in this book.
Buy a copy, save a slut.
(ALL LAUGHING) (AUDIENCE CHATTERING) They loved you.
We just got invited out to Orchid.
Wanna go? We have that book signing tomorrow.
I don't know Kate.
You don't even like girls, remember? I like Orchid.
You know how hard it is to get in there? Come on, you never let me have any fun.
Fine.
(LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) Oh, girls! I am in.
(ALL LAUGHING) LUPO: Cut lip.
Bloody nose.
Two gashes in the belly, with matching slits in the shirt.
Smacked around, then stabbed? You find a knife? My guys are looking.
Hey, cute Mr.
Policeman, you looking for a date? (ALL LAUGH) You want to move that line back a little? Thanks.
Unsafe Sex Central.
Pants are buttoned up, shirt's tucked in, so he didn't get very far.
No wallet, no ID.
Cell phone's dead.
Detectives.
This young lady says she recognizes the body.
That's Sweetie Ness.
I saw him after Delilah called 911.
Is he a regular down here? That how you know him? You're kidding me, right? Don't you watch Oprah? He's a writer.
Okay.
Thank you.
Sweetie Ness, horrible life as a child prostitute, wrote a memoir about how he left it all behind.
Or not.
KATE: That's him.
That's Sweetie.
We called his publisher.
They gave us your name.
We don't usually get referred to a victim's agent, Ms.
Tenny.
Does he have a family? You're kidding.
Did you read his book? No.
His mother was a prostitute.
She started selling him for sex when he was 10.
She was killed by a John when he was 14.
He got out and turned himself around.
That's what the book was about, right? Ten years later.
LUPO: Then why was he at the piers last night? (SIGHS) I don't know.
I thought he stopped all that.
BERNARD: Having sex? On piers, yes.
Do you have his address? He drifted.
When he was in New York, he stayed with me.
Did you see him last night? He had a reading at AK-Forty-Eight.
Then we went to Orchid with some of his fans.
I left at 1:00.
He was still partying.
Here.
(EXHALES) You should know where he came from.
Little Whore.
BERNARD: (READING) "One thing about my mother, she had a sense of humor.
"One night she got drunk and starting putting cigarettes out on my ass.
"'Butts to butt, she said.
" Hilarious.
I'm the manager.
You were asking about that writer? BERNARD: Sweetie Ness.
He was here last night? Flavor of the month.
Drew quite a crowd.
Like who? Like everybody.
Madonna came by with her entourage around midnight.
Mr.
Ness was hanging with some of them.
Madonna? The singer? No, the mother of our Lord.
You know, I didn't know she traveled with an entourage.
(STAMMERS) Who was he hanging with, exactly? I can't believe this.
It is just so shocking.
BERNARD: We understand that you were with Mr.
Ness last night, Ms.
Claiborne.
Lauren, please.
I met him at Orchid.
He seemed so sweet.
The paparazzi were crazy, so Madonna didn't stay.
Um, I asked Sweetie to take me to Blaine's Tavern.
It's a total dive, near the piers.
I wanted to experience what it was like in the world that Sweetie Ness came from.
That would be children getting raped for $50.
(GASPS) What a horrible thing to say.
What happened at Blaine's, Ms.
Claiborne? Well, we had a few drinks, and then I lost track of him.
I met a guy who said he was bisexual, and he actually was.
The last I saw Sweetie, he was being hassled by some fat girl.
He tried to get rid of her, but she wouldn't leave.
Just kept asking him about the poems she sent him "I feel your pain.
I cry your tears.
"I breathe you with each heavy breath.
"I know you know I have no fear of meeting you in death.
" That's a candidate.
Signed, Harold Studinsky.
Do I want to know? Mmm-mmm.
LUPO: Poem's to Sweetie Ness from his agent's stalker file.
Half the writers want to save him.
The other half want to have his baby.
And some would be moved to kill him if they knew he didn't share their emotion.
Or want an autographed photocopy of his ass.
Hey, another poem.
Janice Dunlap.
Boyden, Iowa.
She gives her number.
(SCOFFS) "I've held you in dreams of death and dying, "As Juliet her Romeo While barren earth was crying.
" Hi, is Janice there? This girl needs to cheer up.
(LAUGHS) LUPO: Do you know the name of her hotel? Okay.
She's on vacation in New York.
JANICE: I would never hurt Sweetie.
I loved him.
Yeah, we read your poem.
But when you went up to him at Blaine's, he didn't exactly love you back, did he? He just didn't understand what I was trying to say.
He brushed you off.
He rejected you.
He just couldn't hear me.
It was so crowded.
I took out my phone to try and take his picture and it got knocked out of my hand.
I never even found it.
I went outside and waited, so I could get him alone.
Did you see him come out? Yeah.
And before I could get to him someone else came and Oh God, that guy.
What guy? They wouldn't let me into Orchid, so I waited on the street.
And this guy was there, too.
He was following Sweetie, too.
And he followed Sweetie out of Blaine's? Yes, and Sweetie tried to get away, but the guy grabbed his arm and they were arguing.
What did this guy look like, Janice? He had blond hair.
Dyed blond and He was wearing, uh, a jacket that said Royal or something.
And he was at Orchid? Hey, Lauren Claiborne.
She said the paparazzi was out in force over there.
All right.
LUPO: Don't leave town.
BERNARD: Did you get any pictures of Sweetie Ness? No, not on purpose.
The Advocate isn't a big market for me.
You mind if we look through what you got? Um, do you mind if I see a warrant? We could get one.
We may have to shut you down for a couple of days while we take a real careful look around.
Here.
I'll be right over there.
(BOTH CHUCKLE) Let's see what we got here.
Am I just ignorant, or are these not really celebrities? Oh, just ignorant.
BERNARD: There There's Sweetie Ness and Lauren Claiborne.
Check behind them.
Yeah, there's Janice.
And the blond guy.
Mmm-hmm.
Regal Towing Jim.
Is that your jacket? Yeah.
I lost that on the subway.
Why don't we take a walk over here? All right, you want to tell us what's going on, Jim? Or we can show the photo to your friends, see if they know something.
I lost it in a pool game, okay? Hmm, a pool game where? The Mine Shaft.
The mine what? The Mine Shaft.
Mine Shaft, the gay bar.
Yeah.
I was just having a beer.
Is that the guy you lost it to? Yeah, that's him.
The writer, Sweetie Ness.
No, not him, the blond haired guy wearing your jacket.
Yeah.
Him.
That's Sweetie Ness.
BARTENDER: Yeah.
He's been in.
What did he call himself? BERNARD: Sweetie Ness? People call themselves a lot of things around here.
You just missed Dick Cheney.
Trust me, I don't miss Dick Cheney.
Now, what about this guy? Yeah.
He said he was Sweetie Ness, the great big celebrity.
That's why he couldn't afford to buy his own drinks.
So who did? He did.
The guy at the pool table.
Hey, sweetheart! They're asking about your friend, Ernest Hemingway.
You, uh, strike up an acquaintanceship with this guy here? Yeah.
Guess he didn't exactly level with me.
About who he was, I mean.
Well, when did you figure that out? When I saw a picture of Sweetie Ness in the Post and it wasn't him Pretty damn convincing, though.
Knew everything there was to know about the guy.
(LAUGHS) Even had the cigarette burns on his butt, just like it says in the book.
You know this how? You two get naked right here in the bar? We, uh, went to his hotel.
(KNOCKING ON DOOR) BERNARD: Housekeeping! WOMAN: He checked in a week ago.
And he hasn't checked out? Still his room.
Hey, let's go get a warrant.
Hold on.
You spent the night here, Mr.
Dewey? Uh, yeah.
That makes you a co-occupant.
Do we have your permission to go in and look around? Sure.
Great.
Please? (SHOUTING) NYPD! You two wait here, all right? Guess those law classes are paying off.
For this I get extra credit.
Hey.
Yeah? It's your favorite book.
(LAUGHS) It's annotated.
He studied this to get his story straight.
Lupes.
Looks like blood.
The blood on the shirt's a type match for the victim.
DNA comparison's going to take a while.
The blond guy hasn't gone back to the hotel yet, might be on the run.
Meanwhile, our prime suspect in the killing of Sweetie Ness is still Sweetie Ness.
Or somebody who wants people to think he is Sweetie Ness.
Puffs himself up by playing the part.
He was getting into the role pretty good.
These are phone records from his hotel room.
He made three calls to Kate Tenny, the real Sweetie's agent.
KATE: Who is he? You don't know? He called you three times.
You saw the pile of letters that I gave to you.
We also got a lot of calls about Sweetie.
People wanting interviews, sex.
God knows what.
I pretended to listen.
Yeah, well, this guy thinks he is Sweetie Ness, or puts on a pretty good show.
So he's crazy.
He's not the only one.
He committed to the part.
Gave himself cigarette burns to match the ones Mama gave Sweetie.
Oh, God.
He may have gone further than he needed to there.
BERNARD: What do you mean? I don't exactly want the world to know, but in his book, Sweetie may have exaggerated a few of the gory details.
Poetic license? He liked to give people what they wanted.
(MOBILE PHONE RINGING) Excuse me.
Yes? Did she just tell us Sweetie didn't really have those cigarette burns? No, she said he might not.
Why would she make her star writer a liar? Let's go look at some skin.
Smooth as a baby's bottom.
And there's something else about his posterior you might find interesting.
He's supposed to be a male prostitute? I'm not sure he was supposed to be, but he was.
Well, he's the strangest prostitute I ever saw.
I checked for evidence of sex before he was killed.
There's no indication.
There's also no indication of fibrotic changes to his sphincter.
No scars, no warts, no STDs.
He's an anal virgin.
So he lied about the cigarette burns, the rapes, the arrests.
It's one of those fake memoirs.
Or a stolen one.
We ran the prints from the blond guy's hotel room.
Guess who is a male prostitute? Cody Larson, 24.
Busts for drug possession, loitering, soliciting, mostly in truck stops.
So Cody Larson really was Sweetie Ness? Mm-hmm.
He even had the burns.
So, you're thinking he read that book and figured someone had stolen his life? And motored up to New York to get it back.
What about the agent, Kate Tenny? Was she conned by a fake Sweetie Ness, or was she in on the gag? Well, she didn't have many clients.
Came out of nowhere a couple of years ago as an agent.
Now, her bio only says she used to be a journalist.
BERNARD: "Pretty Boys: The Tragic Lives of Child Prostitutes.
" Yeah, Kate had a way with those kids.
Really got them to open up.
It's like she spoke their language.
Yeah, she interviewed a bunch of them.
Trailer parks, truck stops, drugs, rapes.
His mother was a monster.
She sold him to her Johns and laughed about putting out cigarettes on his buttocks.
That was Cody Larson.
Right? You met him 10 years ago when you wrote that article.
I don't know.
They used made-up names.
Yeah, then you ripped him off and wrote your book based on his life story.
He must've been plenty pissed when he found out.
He came to New York.
He called you.
I told you.
I get a lot of crazy calls.
You want to hear crazy, lady? That body that we have in the morgue.
We ran it through Missing Persons and it came back an actor from Louisville named Dale Marks.
His mother said he came to New York for some kind of job and never came home.
You hired him to play Sweetie Ness, didn't you? Based on the book that you wrote, based on the life story that you stole from Cody Larson.
Oh God.
Look, I thought the world should know what was happening to these children.
No one was speaking up for them, no one.
So you stepped up.
Cody wasn't going to write a book.
I didn't even know he could read.
And I didn't think that it would get anyone killed.
Yeah, and while you've been lying to us to protect your phony book, the killer's been getting away.
You have any ideas where we can find him? Right now.
He called me.
He was angry.
He wanted the world to know that he was Sweetie Ness, and he wanted some money, so I sent him a little, twice, just so that I could keep him quiet while I figured things out.
How'd you send the money? The first wire transfer was picked up at a store in the West Village.
She sent the second one the day before the murder.
It was picked up last night at the Cross Bronx Truck Plaza.
Either he hopped on a truck and he's gone Or he's back to his old tricks, working the truck stops.
Home sweet home.
You know, I know that place from when I worked Vice.
There are 30 ways in and out, and truckers and hustlers can smell cops a mile away.
So what should we smell like? How's my audio? VAN BUREN: We can hear your gears grinding.
Yeah, well, next time get me a longer driving lesson.
All right, turn off your headlights, and leave the parking and roof lights on.
Done.
Now you're going to have to look for a date, so go inside, get the mouthwash.
Make sure people see it.
I don't mind telling you this, but that kind of weirds me out a little.
That's a big 10-4, buddy.
Anything else? That'll be it, thanks.
You looking for a party, handsome? I, uh, might be.
Not you though.
I like a man who's all man.
Honey.
(CHUCKLES) I'm more man than you can handle.
A little whiter, too, and younger.
No offense.
None taken, honey.
The customer's always right.
You know? I got a friend now.
Just be sure to give him an extra big tip for me, okay? LUPO: It's been half an hour.
You think he's got appointments backed up, or what? Same old story.
White boy gets the job.
(LAUGHS) Someone's coming your way.
I hear you're looking for some company.
Come on in.
It's 30 for oral, 50 gets you anything you want.
I got 50.
Then I got anything you want.
You read that book? Pretty good.
That's me.
I'm Sweetie Ness.
I don't think so.
This guy got himself killed the other night.
You can't believe everything you read in the papers.
Then who got himself killed? You don't know anything.
This guy was famous.
You're just some truck-stop twink.
So what do you want to do here exactly? Hold on, hold on.
Cody, I'm a cop.
You're under arrest.
Oh, God.
Hold still! And I'm going to need that 50 bucks back.
Docket number 41678, People v.
Cody Larson.
Murder in the Second Degree.
I didn't kill that faker.
JUDGE: Okay, so we'll make that a Not Guilty.
He was the crook.
He stole my life.
Mr.
Haig, you might suggest to your client that he put a sock in it.
He has a legitimate grievance, Your Honor.
So does the dead guy.
Bail, Ms.
Rubirosa? No fixed address, long criminal record Nothing more serious than prostitution and petty theft.
Good news! Free room and board.
Remand.
I understand we can thank your client for broadcasting his motive at the arraignment.
It doesn't mean he killed anyone.
But Dale Marks did steal your life, didn't he, Mr.
Larson? Or you thought he did.
You ought to call me Sweetie.
I'm taking the name.
He just keeps on giving, doesn't he? His persona was appropriated by Mr.
Marks and Ms.
Tenny.
We're filing suit to claim a share of the royalties from the book they published.
Little Whore.
I assume you're looking forward to your share of that settlement, Dave.
I don't usually see you representing indigents.
Well, I do what I can.
A motion to exclude the bloody shirt the police found in the hotel room.
I might have cut his lip or something, but I didn't kill him.
They had no warrant, and Mr.
Larson didn't consent to the search.
He didn't need to.
The room's other occupant consented.
Mr.
Dewey? He wasn't living there.
He was renting.
Which would make him a resident, with a right of privacy, and the standing to waive that privacy.
The room isn't what he was renting.
HAIG: This affidavit from Mr.
Dewey attests that he paid Mr.
Larson for his time and sexual favors.
That's not what he told the police.
Because he was embarrassed.
They like to kid themselves, you know? So you make 'em think you like 'em.
Like you wouldn't take the money from just anybody.
But you would.
Thank you, Mr.
Larson.
Clearly, Mr.
Dewey was a customer, and not a roommate.
CUTTER: Overnight guests have an expectation of privacy.
The police couldn't have searched Mr.
Dewey's things without a warrant.
Conversely, he had standing to give them permission to enter.
The Supreme Court decided this in Minnesota v.
Olson.
HAIG: That doesn't apply to commercial visitors.
If I'm shopping at Macy's and fall asleep on a couch, it doesn't mean I live there.
CUTTER: The police didn't know the circumstances.
They had reason to believe Mr.
Larson and Mr.
Dewey had a personal relationship.
How long have they been cops? Eleven minutes? They should have gotten a warrant.
The motion to suppress is granted.
He's wrong on the law.
It's a gray area.
So I have to listen to a murderer tell me how to pick up Johns at the Mine Shaft, and then let him walk? (LAUGHS) We still have Larson's motive.
Dale Marks stole his life and Larson knew it.
We have a photo of him stalking Marks and the witness who saw him accost Marks right before the murder.
One witness.
Nail her down.
I don't know.
It was really dark outside.
You told the police you saw Cody Larson follow Dale Marks outside of Blaine's Tavern.
They argued and when Mr.
Marks walked away, Mr.
Larson followed.
I'm not sure.
You're not sure about what? Maybe they were just talking.
I was just so focused on the one that got killed.
I thought he was Sweetie.
Ms.
Dunlap, I'm assuming that you didn't lie to the police.
I was very emotional.
I thought Sweetie had just been killed.
Maybe I was looking for somebody to blame, on the subconscious level, you know? Maybe that influenced my perceiving.
Her subconscious mind might have influenced her perceptions? Who's she been hanging out with? Sigmund Freud? Worse.
Check out the visitors' log from Rikers.
She's been visiting Cody Larson in jail.
Or, as he now prefers to be called, Sweetie.
She's obsessed with Sweetie Ness, and now she knows Dale Marks was an imposter, she's changing her story to protect the real Sweetie.
Yeah, but is he the real Sweetie? I understand he has some cigarette burns on his ass that make a pretty good case.
I was reading Little Whore and Cody Larson's probation record.
He was raised by his aunt who put him in Catholic school until he ran away.
Well, there's no aunt in the book, no Catholic school.
And, the book says that he spent three months in a work camp in Michigan.
Michigan Corrections has no record of a Cody Larson.
Kate Tenny interviewed a dozen kids for her article, right? Sweetie Ness is a composite.
KATE: My publisher called me in.
They're talking about pulping the book.
Well, maybe if it wasn't a total fraud.
Look, I may have screwed up, but this book is about real victims, about a situation that needs to be stopped.
We need to find some of the other hustlers you interviewed.
That's not going to be easy.
They've all grown up.
I don't even know if I have my notes anymore.
We can get a warrant and go through your office looking for them.
Yeah, maybe even your publisher's, too.
I'll send you what I have.
No question about it.
That's my stuff in there.
You're buying me lunch, right? Yeah, sure.
Is there any particular reason why this office is flying gay prostitutes in from all over the country? It's the Cody Larson trial.
He's entitled to a jury of his peers.
That's fellow citizens, not fellow hustlers.
It's not for the jury, Jack.
We have a witness problem.
And these men are the solution? Hey, she's here.
Stay.
Watch.
Learn.
Rooted to the spot.
Uh, Ms.
Dunlap, this is Jack McCoy, our District Attorney.
Uh-huh.
Who are they? Out there.
Oh, you noticed.
What do you want? I told that lady that I don't remember anything from that night.
Because you don't want to testify against Sweetie Ness.
Because I couldn't see good.
Now, you came here from Iowa because you admire Sweetie Ness, and you don't want to be the one to send him to prison, right? Ms.
Dunlap, say hello to Mr.
Dean, Mr.
Ramirez, and Mr.
Stocker.
Oh, and by the way, they're all Sweetie Ness.
What? They were all interviewed by Kate Tenny when she was a journalist.
Here.
"I told him no and started to run.
"He said, come back here, boy, "or I'll let the dog loose.
" Damn bitch bit me right here.
Still got the scar.
You know where Uncle Louie got me.
And here.
"My mother was drunk and roaring.
"She tossed the burned chicken at me, plate and all.
" Plate hit me here.
Had to get my uppers replaced.
I still can't chew right.
Stop it.
Kate Tenny used all their stories in this book.
Cody Larson is no more Sweetie Ness than any one of them is.
I don't know.
A man was murdered, Ms.
Dunlap.
His real name was Dale Marks and he was really murdered by Cody Larson.
And you need to tell the truth about what you saw, about what you know.
Just a minute.
I'll need to see those.
Lady, I got three subpoenas, and none of them is for you.
He's a process server, from Cody Larson's attorney.
He'd like our visitors to testify for the defense.
How'd he know they were here? Cody and me, we keep in touch.
I'll take those.
Consider them served.
You just gave the defense three alternate theories of the crime.
If they're all Sweetie Ness, they all had motive to kill Mr.
Marks.
Oh, I stayed.
I watched.
What is it I was supposed to learn? Cody called me a couple of months ago and asked me if I'd seen that book.
This was the first I'd heard.
And how did Mr.
Larson like that book? He didn't.
Um, said it was full of stories, his stories, that he'd been ripped off royal.
Did he indicate what he was going to do about that? Come up to New York and set things straight.
I see.
Thank you.
You were already in New York, weren't you? Yeah, I'd been living here a while.
Some of your stories were in that book, too.
Yeah.
I went out and found a copy after I talked to Cody.
It had the thing about my teeth, bunch of stuff.
So you'd been ripped off royal, too.
STOCKER: You could say.
So you had the same reason to be angry at Mr.
Marks that the defendant did, the same motive to kill him.
He'd stolen your life, too.
Except I didn't care.
Really? You didn't care about the money? Didn't care about the fame? I'm all set, thanks.
Got married a few months ago to a very nice man.
Very generous.
I do not need to rock that boat.
I got a lot of calls about Sweetie.
He attracted all kinds of people.
But did anyone other than Cody Larson ever complain to you that the book had stolen their stories? No.
No one ever did.
That wouldn't have made sense anyway, since the stories were Cody's.
You mean, some of the stories in the book came from things you'd heard from Cody Larson.
No.
I may have helped him out with a few other things I'd picked up, that was my job.
But Cody Larson is the author of Little Whore.
He is Sweetie Ness.
Ms.
Tenny.
Didn't you tell me before this trial that you wrote that book, drawing on the lives of a dozen young men? I told you what you wanted to hear.
You threatened me.
She threatened me.
She said she was going to search my publisher's office.
They would have dropped me.
I couldn't let that happen.
Sweetie Cody.
He has another book coming out.
CUTTER: If Cody is Sweetie Ness, then why did you stand next to Dale Marks and tell the whole world he was Sweetie Ness? We hired Dale.
Cody wanted to protect his privacy.
Look, Cody was in no shape to face the public.
The types of demands fans placed on Dale when they thought he was Sweetie It got pretty crazy.
It may have gotten him killed.
She's lying.
She's been saying she faked that book to save abused children but it's making a fortune, and this puts her back in business.
Larson's lawyer probably brokered the deal.
Maybe.
But she just shot your motive to hell.
Sweetie Ness had no reason to kill someone he'd hired to impersonate himself.
Cody Larson isn't Sweetie Ness.
JACK: He drops his pants to the jury and shows them the burns on his butt, they might believe he is.
Are you enjoying this? Enjoying watching my prosecutors lose control of their witnesses, and their case? That's not the word that leaps to mind.
CONNIE: Okay, so what if it's true? What she said.
Oh, please.
She said the fans got crazy.
We know one crazy fan who was next to the fake Sweetie right before he got killed.
Your star witness, right? I just got this.
Sweetie's book from Paris, in French.
No one else in America has one of these yet.
And look, autographed.
Love to a very special fan.
And he said that he read my poems, him and Miss Tenny.
He said that they were going to put them in his next book.
Janice, you met those other men.
You know that Cody isn't really Sweetie Ness, right? You lied to me.
Cody told me things that no one else could know.
Like here.
Where he talks about the great love of his life.
Chris.
That's a girl, not a guy.
Sweetie wasn't even really gay.
He just went with men for money.
And Chris lived in Little Rock, but then she died.
Janice, if you don't testify truthfully about what you saw, we're going to charge you with perjury.
You're not going to drop the charges? Cody Larson killed a man.
We're not going to let it go because he gave you a phony story and an autograph.
You know if he wasn't really gay, Janice, that means there's a possibility that you and he Is that what you were thinking? Okay.
I did it.
Did what? I killed the fake Sweetie.
She didn't kill anybody.
CONNIE: The water's pretty muddy, Mike.
All the defense has to do is put her on the stand.
Well, that won't be necessary.
I will.
And call the authorities in Boyden, Iowa, or wherever the hell she came from.
JANICE: I went up to Dale outside the bar.
I thought he was Sweetie, and he told me to get lost, and I told him I just wanted to talk.
And he said I was bothering him.
And he said terrible things.
It was awful.
The real Sweetie would understand.
So, I followed him and got next to him again and he shoved me hard.
And I had a knife I carry for protection, and I took it out, I don't know why.
And I didn't mean to stab him.
I'm so sorry.
How many times? What? How many times did you stab him without even knowing why? (SIGHS) I don't know.
It was like a dream.
Like a nightmare.
You don't know because you didn't do it.
Isn't that right? No.
You told the police the last time you saw the victim he was with Cody Larson.
That was before, when Dale came out of the bar.
He was making a phone call.
It was noisy inside, then Sweetie came after him.
You mean Cody.
Cody is Sweetie.
They talked.
And then Sweetie I mean Cody, left, and then that's when I came up to Dale and it happened.
Janice, do you love Sweetie Ness? Um, I guess, in a way.
Kind of.
(GIGGLING) Do you think he loves you? He's never said anything like that, but he did write some really nice notes about my poetry.
But, he never wrote to you about your poems before, did he? When you mailed them to him? No.
Of course, that was before he needed you to falsely confess to a murder so he could go free.
That was before we knew each other.
And now he confides in you, right? He tells you things he wouldn't tell anyone else.
Like about a person named Chris, his one true love? Yes.
Chris was "Not exactly what I made him out to be.
"The main thing being, Chris wasn't a him at all, Chris was a she.
" Two months ago, taken from an interview given by Dale Marks as Sweetie.
They're giving you old news, Janice.
You're selling yourself cheap.
I'm not selling anything.
The fake Sweetie blew you off that night, right? Because he was hanging out with the beautiful people.
That wasn't the real Sweetie.
If Cody Larson gets acquitted, he'll be running in the same circles.
You can't compete with them.
All you can do for Cody is go to jail for him.
That's not what I'm doing.
Do you have any friends? Sure.
A boyfriend? Not right now.
I had one.
Was his name Chuck? A truck driver? Yes.
That would be Charles R.
Thomas? Who was so enamored of you that he went to court to get a restraining order to keep you from bothering him.
This restraining order? (IN A CHOKED VOICE) That was a mistake.
Janice, haven't people been pushing you away and telling you to get lost your entire life? They know that, Janice.
These people are using you.
And you know it.
Now, let's just get the truth out, and say it how it really is.
Did you kill Dale Marks? No.
The last time I saw him, he was with Sweetie.
I mean Cody.
I mean I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, Sweetie.
I'm sorry.
(SOBBING) CUTTER: I understand it wasn't pretty.
It saved her from going to jail for a crime she didn't commit.
Here.
Trial's over, Connie.
We're just waiting for the jury.
No, Janice said that Dale Marks was using a phone when he left the bar.
JACK: So? The police checked his cell records.
He didn't make any calls that night.
His battery was dead.
So, how was he using a phone? Janice said that she lost hers.
Maybe he picked it up.
(CELL PHONE RINGING) Jury's back.
JUDGE: Members of the jury, on the charge of murder in the second degree against Cody Larson, how do you find? JUROR: We find the defendant guilty.
(JUDGE POUNDS GAVEL) (INAUDIBLE) Pull Janice Dunlap's cell phone records.
There were two calls.
One at 3:00 a.
m.
To a limo company, that was cut off short.
Must have been the call that Dale Marks was making when he left the bar, and was interrupted by Cody.
The second call was 30 minutes later.
I thought Dale Marks was dead 30 minutes later.
Cody's story is that he fought with Marks, gave him a bloody lip, but left him alive.
So, whom did Marks call with his bloody lip? Kate Tenny.
The agent? We lifted her prints off a book she gave the detectives.
Put them in the system, this came back.
You did just convict somebody else of your murder.
I know.
Let's go see Ms.
Tenny.
Running late.
Marketing meeting at the publisher.
I hear they're doing Sweetie's second book.
Mmm, 200,000 first printing, first serial in Vanity Fair.
Hollywood is calling.
Even though the author's locked up? Oh, that does kind of mess up the book tour.
But, there is some kind of romance in a jailhouse writer.
Maybe you could do the tour.
Me? (SCOFFING) I don't think I'd pass for a gay male hooker.
No.
But you were a hooker.
CONNIE: We have your record.
You were arrested at 16 and at 18 for prostitution.
CUTTER: And there were sealed arrests when you were 12 and 13.
A child.
That's why the book is so convincing, isn't it? Why it feels so real.
You're Sweetie Ness.
That's ridiculous.
What would happen if we tracked down your mother, what would we find? What kind of monster? My mother is dead, God rest her soul.
CUTTER: What happened, Kate? Did Dale Marks call you after Cody Larson knocked him around? Say he'd had enough? He wanted out? So, you had to go down there and keep him quiet, and things got a little out of hand? Mr.
Cutter, what a wonderful imagination you have.
Maybe you should write a book.
Or (IN HUSKY VOICE) If you ever wanna party with somebody nice and tight, sugar daddy, you just give me a call.
(NORMAL VOICE) Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm late for my meeting.
The police searched Kate Tenny's home and office.
There was no sign of a murder weapon.
They canvassed every hooker south of 14th Street.
Nobody saw her the night Dale Marks was murdered.
So, there's no actual evidence.
I'm filing to vacate the conviction of Cody Larson.
You can't prove she did it.
Something may turn up.
And if it doesn't? She wins.
We lose.